A group of leftist activists is plotting to “shut down” the inauguration of Donald Trump on Jan. 20 – forcing the president-elect to take his oath of office “behind closed doors” – “if Trump is to be inaugurated at all.” The group, known as the D.C. Counter-Inaugural Welcoming Committee, or #DisruptJ20, says it calls on “all people of conscience to shut down the ceremonies.” It continues, “If Trump is inaugurated at all, let it happen behind closed doors, showing the world that the vast majority of people in the U.S. do not support his presidency or consent to his rule.”

Comet Ping Pong–the Chevy Chase pizzeria tormented by a gunman who was “self-investigating” an internet hoax last Sunday–will host a neighborhood support event this weekend. Billed “Stand With Comet” on Facebook, the event was originally just planned for Friday. But with thousands saying they’re interested in attending, the organizers of the event decided to extend the event, pushing it through the end of Sunday. “We have been overwhelmed by the amount of support and solidarity you have all shown,” the announcement, posted on Facebook, says. “It is a stirring reminder of how many good people there are out there,...

Inspired by advocacy and social justice, a mom-of-two leads by example With a devotion to women’s and children’s health and safety issues, Jennifer Tapper, 37, finds Washington the ideal place in which to raise her family. “With all its passionate people trying to improve the world, and those policymakers who have the power to do so, it’s one of the reasons I love living in this town,” says Tapper, mom to Alice, seven, and Jack, four. When she’s not home in Northwest DC with her kids, Tapper works as an advocacy consultant, sharing knowledge from her early professional years as...

A friend is fond of saying, “But for the federal government, Washington would be Richmond.” He’s not dissing Richmond. He’s making the common sense observation that behemoth government is the reason DC metro thrives. After all, as of late 2014, five of the nine richest counties in the U.S. were commuting distance from Washington. A Trumpian government reform project would reduce the federal government as an engine of DC metro’s wealth. That wealth has created legions of affluent professionals, in and out of government, who reside in DC’s ever-sprawling reach. These government-dependent pros are about protecting their turf and growing...

<p>The nation's first elected Somali-American lawmaker says she was harassed and called "ISIS" by a taxicab driver in Washington, D.C. Minnesota Rep.-elect Ilhan Omar detailed the incident on her Facebook page on Wednesday. She said the cab driver called her ISIS, lobbed sexist taunts and threatened to remove her hijab during a brief ride on Tuesday after a White House meeting on criminal justice reform. She did not provide information about the driver. Omar, 33, says she is troubled by growing animosity toward Muslim people. Her campaign staff did not immediately respond to a request for comment.</p>

WASHINGTON — Edgar M. Welch, 28, of Salisbury, N.C., was arrested Sunday after firing a gun inside a pizza restaurant in Washington as he investigated false claims in online articles that the pizzeria was at the center of a child sex slave ring, the police said. No one was injured by the gunfire, and Mr. Welch surrendered peacefully. The pizzeria, Comet Ping Pong, had been swept into a conspiracy theory, which linked the supposed ring to Hillary Clinton, because its owner had corresponded with the Clinton campaign about a fund-raising dinner.

The District of Columbia’s most prestigious neighborhood used tax money to commission a work of art honoring Hillary Clinton. The artwork, titled “Red, White, and Hillary Blue Diamonds,” consists of five aluminum frames illuminated by LED lights. The diamond-shaped structures are installed in three locations, where they serve “as gateways into Georgetown.” The installations are “dedicated to former Senator Hillary Clinton, who is the beacon of dignity and guiding light, as a thank you for her strength as we move forward,” according to a placard next to the art.

The 17th Amendment, which allowed the popular election of U.S. senators, “disenfranchised” state legislatures and altered the U.S. Constitution's checks and balances, Chapman University Law Professor John Eastman told an audience of state legislators in Washington, D.C. last week. The amendment made it easier for Congress to pass legislation, which eventually led to the massive growth in federal power that the states are still grappling with today... “What the founders did is come up with this counterintuitive notion that adding an extra layer of government would provide less government and greater liberty. And it only worked if those governments were...

A man who said he was investigating a conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring out of a pizza place fired an assault rifle inside the Washington, DC, restaurant on Sunday, injuring no one, police and news reports said. Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman Aquita Brown said police received a call Sunday afternoon about a male with a weapon on Connecticut Avenue, in an affluent neighborhood of the nation’s capital. Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, of Salisbury, North Carolina, walked in the front door of Comet Ping Pong and pointed a firearm in the direction of a restaurant employee,...

Yesterday an idiot fired a rifle in a D.C. restaurant because he was trying to investigate "PizzaGate," the latest, dumbest variation on the decades-old series of rumors that the country is governed by secret pedophile rings. (Fortunately, no injuries have been reported.) Since the gunman was inspired by a false story, his crime was promptly blamed on "fake news." Then some pundits tried to link his assault to Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Donald Trump's pick to be national security adviser, on the grounds that Flynn had promoted the PizzaGate story. But it turned out the general had actually been alluding...

Sentencing reform, a euphemism that the pro-crime lobby uses to mean going soft on criminals, is championed by the left and by some elements on the right. This Washington Post story shows the terrible effects of sentencing reform on the victims of criminals freed to rape and kill. Hundreds of criminals sentenced by D.C. judges under an obscure local law crafted to give second chances to young adult offenders have gone on to rob, rape or kill residents of the nation’s capital. The original intent of the law was to rehabilitate inexperienced criminals under the age of 22. The District’s Youth...

In Mr. Pence’s New D.C. Neighborhood, Not Exactly The Welcome Wagon By Ian Shapira. December 3. In the affluent Washington neighborhood of Chevy Chase, the tinsel, poinsettias and Christmas trees are competing for attention this holiday season with an unusual house decoration: gay pride rainbow flags. When news filtered out in late November that Vice President-elect Mike Pence was temporarily moving into the white colonial with green shutters on Tennyson Street NW — in the heart of Chevy Chase, a liberal Democratic stronghold — neighbors decided to greet the Republican interloper with polite protest: rainbow flags flapping from their homes....

House armed services committee conferees, in negotiating a final fiscal 2017 defense authorization bill, succeeded in blocking every substantive initiative aimed at slowing military compensation growth as had been backed by the Senate, the Obama administration and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As a result, active and reserve component forces will get a 2.1 percent pay raise Jan. 1 rather than 1.6 percent, avoiding a fourth consecutive cap on the annual military pay adjustment, each of which kept troop raises at least a half percentage point behind private sector wage growth.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) came out against Donald Trump’s selection of retired Marine Gen. James Mattis for secretary of Defense, saying she would not support a necessary congressional waiver to allow him to take on the role. Gillibrand is the first lawmaker to oppose waiving the prohibition on former military officers heading the Pentagon less than seven years after retiring. “While I deeply respect General Mattis’s service, I will oppose a waiver,” she said in a statement. “Civilian control of our military is a fundamental principle of American democracy, and I will not vote for an exception to this rule.”...

The Ted Cruz campaign may have played a key role in handing Donald Trump the White House, an on the record discussion between key political operatives Thursday revealed. Cruz’s campaign manager, Jeff Roe, warned the Trump campaign ahead of the New Hampshire primary that support for him was dropping in their internal polls, giving Trump a chance to recalibrate his strategy in the key primary state. He went on to win New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, essentially locking up the Republican nomination. Corey Lewandowski, then Trump’s campaign manager, recalled the phone call at an election post-mortem hosted by Harvard...

Until he moves into the Naval Observatory after taking office, the vice president-elect is renting a $6,000-a-month home in Chevy Chase, a swanky neighborhood in the Northwest quadrant of the nation’s capital. ... Roughly half-dozen pride flags are outside of homes on the block where Pence lives and neighbors say more are on the way.... “I have no idea what (the vice president elect) will think about, but I hope he will change his mind,” she added.

Religious freedom issues have certainly been in the news in the U.S. over the past several years -- from the Little Sisters of the Poor to the freedom of organizations to hire people who aim to serve the mission of the organization. The federal government has played an unfortunate role in attempting to coerce people of faith to violate their consciences. Take the mandate from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (also known as the "HHS mandate") that forces Catholics like the Little Sisters to facilitate drugs and devices that can cause an abortion, among other morally objectionable...

Fox News just made history. According to figures from Nielsen Media Research, Fox averaged 3,283,000 primetime, viewers in November — a 71 percent jump from November 2015 — making it the highest-rated primetime month since 2012. Fox’s numbers more than doubled the combined totals from CNN and MSNBC — 1,529,000 and 1,335,000 respectively — over the same timeframe. The network also posted monumental numbers for daytime viewers. Its 1,966,000 average made it Fox’s second-highest rated month for daytime viewers. FNC notably saw a substantial bump at the 7:00 pm, EST time slot, now occupied by former “Fox & Friends” host...

Largest all-female expedition braves Antarctica to fight inequality, climate change By Umberto Bacchi LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The largest all-female expedition to Antarctica, comprising 76 scientists, is due to set sail from Argentina on Friday in a quest to promote women in science and highlight the impact of climate change on the planet. The international team will brave sub-zero temperatures to undergo a 20-day bootcamp on the frozen continent aimed at developing their leadership skills and challenging male dominance of senior scientific roles. Women make up only 28 percent of the world's researchers and are particularly under-represented at senior...

After Donald Trump is sworn in as president on Jan. 20, he will follow a time-honored tradition and make his way from the U.S. Capitol down Pennsylvania Avenue. Along the way, just a few blocks before he reaches the White House, he'll pass the Trump International Hotel. The 263-room luxury hotel is becoming the focus of a debate over conflict of interest between Trump and his business dealings. Trump doesn't actually own the landmark building, which was once the headquarters of the U.S. Post Office. In 2013, he signed a 60-year lease for the building with the General Services Administration,...

Video at link. Fidel Castro’s recent death evoked conflicting assessments of his legacy from world leaders, but college students are no more prepared than prime ministers to justify their support for the Cuban dictator. A number of students at American University acknowledged the brutality of Castro's regime, but insisted that he was a better leader than Trump because he did "good things" for the Cuban people. Fidel Castro’s recent death evoked conflicting assessments of his legacy from world leaders, but college students are no more prepared than prime ministers to justify their support for the Cuban dictator. President-Elect Donald Trump,...

As Costs to Shelter Homeless Grow, D.C. Mayor Wants Non-City Residents Out Posted on November 29, 2016 Steve Burns WMAL.com WASHINGTON – (WMAL) As costs continue soaring to house the District’s homeless population, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser Tuesday said the District should put an end to housing non-District residents in the city’s homeless shelters. “If we are serving everybody else’s residents, we can’t serve our own,” Bowser said during a Mayor-Council breakfast Tuesday morning. “We have an obligation to serve our residents, but we cannot serve the entire region.” City officials say costs are expanding rapidly as the homeless population...

Obama is big on making up his own laws and rules. He rules by executive order and he's gotten into the truly illegal habit of unilaterally signing treaties with foreign governments. This is a very basic problem. And in the context of his deal to take in Muslim migrants rejected by Australia, he is being warned once again that his actions are grossly illegal and unconstitutional. ... We’re not even being told the total numbers who will shortly be making their way to our shores, but the Journal notes that two of the camps located on Naru and Manus Islands...

ntTrump on Recount Efforts: Remember When People Told Me to Accept Results?Dana Bash to Sanders: Is It Appropriate for Obama to Offer Condolences for a Brutal Dictator?'Disgraceful': Canadian PM Slammed on Twitter For Offering Tribute to Fidel CastroProminent Harvard Law Prof Tells Electoral College to Abandon Trump Trump: Â‘I Won the Popular Vote If You Deduct the Millions of People Who Voted IllegallyÂ’ by Josh Feldman | 3:44 pm, November 27th, 2016 Donald Trump tweeted this afternoon that he won the popular vote if you factor out Â“the millions of people who voted illegally.Â” Earlier today Trump was going off...

The allegations against Comet Ping Pong, reported by the New York Times, are absurd on their face and detached from any gossamer thread of fact. They took root in the dark crevices of the Web and took flight thanks to social media platforms, whose witless “who, us?” posture in the face of misinformation and outright lunacy is a civic embarrassment. More than that, the use of social media as a platform for outright lies about public figures and, in this case, malevolent rumors about a pleasant neighborhood restaurant popular with families is a menace to private lives, peace and prosperity....

Michelle Obama kicked off her family's final Christmas season at the White House on Friday by receiving a 19-foot Balsam-Veitch fir from Wisconsin as the official White House Christmas tree. Joined by two young nephews instead of her teenage daughters, the first lady said she's ready and excited for the holiday. . . . Mrs. Obama explained that the appearance by her nephews "is what happens when you get teenagers," referring to 18-year-old Malia and 15-year-old Sasha, the daughters who in past years have joined her for the tradition of receiving the Christmas tree on the morning after Thanksgiving. "One's...

Earlier today, a lawyer for Hillary ClintonÂ’s campaign stated that they will join in on the recount efforts initiated by Green party presidential candidate Jill Stein in Wisconsin. While Marc Elias stated in his Medium post that the campaign Â“had not uncovered any actionable evidence of hacking,Â” they would take Â“the same approachÂ” if Stein follows through on her promises of recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan, along with participating in the one already scheduled in Wisconsin. Until now, President-elect Donald Trump and his team have remained quiet about SteinÂ’s recount efforts. However, now that the Clinton camp is jumping into...

Michelle Obama welcomed her last Christmas tree to the White House today with the help of her adorable nephews Austin and Aaron Robinson, who led first pets Sunny and Bo out to inspect the Blue Room centerpiece. The First Lady kicked off the holiday season in style with an incredibly chic bell-sleeved black jacket, along with skinny trousers and high-heeled boots as the 19-foot Douglas Fir was delivered to the White House from Pennsylvania. Michelle called her nephews her 'replacement kids' and said at least one of her teenage daughters was asleep during the annual festivities. The president, on the...

One of the most influential men in the nation’s capital is livid with Internet sleuths who suspect him of having ties to a sex-trafficking ring. The New York Times interviewed James Alefantis, the owner of a restaurant called Comet Ping Pong in Washington, on Tuesday to dispel rumors that he is tied to a child-abuse ring. Stolen documents belonging to former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, which were made public by WikiLeaks, linked the two men and sparked crowd-sourced research into his life on Reddit and 4Chan. “From this insane, fabricated conspiracy theory, we’ve come under constant assault,” Mr....

President-elect Trump isn't the only one thinking about splitting his time between two cities. When President Obama leaves the White House this January, his family is expected to become bi-coastal, with homes in both DC and California. Sources told the New York Post that the Obamas have purchased a home in Rancho Mirage, California.

IRS data show the average income of taxpayers leaving Illinois surpassed the average income of taxpayers entering the state by $20,000 in 2014, a record loss for Illinois in the wake of the 2011 income-tax hike. Politicians enacted Illinois’ 2011 income-tax hike during a late-night legislative session in January 2011 and raised the state’s personal income-tax rate to 5 percent from 3 percent. This 67 percent income-tax hike lasted for four years, during which time Illinois experienced record wealth flight. IRS data reveal what happens when politicians choose short-term tax revenue gains over long-term stability. The short-term increase in tax...

Midtown Manhattan—with its noise, traffic, slow-moving tourists, and overpriced everything—is the one place most New Yorkers avoid at all costs (if they can help it.) It’s also home to Trump Tower, a gargantuan gold-plated phallus jabbed straight into the city skyline where the President-elect is planning on spending weekends during his term in office. In a neighborhood as densely populated as Midtown, the necessary job of keeping Trump safe will lead to unprecedented hassles for those living and working in New York, a city which already earns its stripes as having the country’s worst workday commute. The Washington Post reports...

Kosar Breaking News Editor November 17, 2016 Clinton Foundation death It has been reported on Reddit that Monica Petersen, working for the Human Trafficking Center, was in Haiti investigating possible human trafficking connections to the Clinton Foundation. Peterson previously worked for the Colorado Human Trafficking Council’s Data & Research Task Force. Early in 2016, a friend shared her blog post which was critical of Hillary Clinton’s shady dealings in Haiti. Carlos Slim’s net worth is more than $64.8 billion dollars. The richest man on earth is a Mexican telecom mogul, whose career’s “most interesting parts” are his links to businessmen...

The committee is being led by former Forbes 400 member Tom Barrack, a Los Angeles tycoon who founded private equity firm Colony Capital and was a featured speaker at the Republican National Convention in July, where he described Trump as one of his “closest friends for 40 years.” A major fundraiser, Barrack launched the “Rebuilding America Now” super PAC to support the Trump campaign. He served as Deputy Undersecretary of the Department of the Interior under Ronald Reagan, and is being floated as a possible pick for Treasury Secretary. Of the remaining 19 members of the committee, four are on...

The Federal Transit Administration is raising questions about whether Metro rail ties are the proper size to keep tracks safely in place. A federal inspection report released Wednesday says inspectors have “consistently noted” WMATA crossties on mainline track that are 7 1/2 inches. Metro’s own standards call for rail ties at switches to have at least an 8-inch face. The inspection report noted that as of Sept. 24, Metro had not responded to federal inspectors’ questions about crossties that are a half inch narrower than internal standards. It is not clear how many of the smaller crossties exist in the...

President Obama is apparently refusing to renovate the Oval Office — and has instead decided to pass the buck to Donald Trump, who may be forced to work somewhere else for a quarter of his term now as a result of the numerous security upgrades that will be going on inside the room. “My understanding is that for the first year of his time in office, President Trump will not have the Oval Office,” former George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove told Fox News on Wednesday.

Complete Headline: The face of defeat: A weary-looking Hillary Clinton makes her first appearance since her concession and admits that 'coming here wasn't the easiest thing for me' and she wanted to 'never leave the house again' Hillary Clinton attended the Children's Defense Fund's gala in Washington, D.C on Wednesday evening It was the failed presidential candidate's first public appearance since she conceded to Donald Trump a week ago She considered cancelling her speech, saying she 'wanted to curl up with a book or our dogs and never leave the house again' Said she drew inspiration from the organization's founder...

Donald Trump has taken the unprecedented step of requesting his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, receive top-secret clearance to join him for his Presidential Daily Briefings, which began Tuesday. Multiple sources tell NBC News Trump received his first briefing on Tuesday and designated both Kushner and Ret. Gen. Michael Flynn as his staff-level companions for the briefings going forward. While Flynn has the necessary security clearance, Kushner does not, and it could take weeks — or even longer — for him to receive it.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain issued a sharp warning Tuesday against the prospect of reset in U.S.-Russia relations — a day after President-elect Donald Trump engaged in an extensive phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Mr. McCain, who switched back and forth between supporting and criticizing Mr. Trump ahead of last week’s election, said in a statement that he distrusts Mr. Putin, and the idea of pandering to Russia will come at a high price for U.S. interests in the Middle East and beyond. “With the U.S. presidential transition underway, Vladimir Putin has said in recent days...

Say you have a great meal at Comet Ping Pong and want to leave the Upper Northwest restaurant a four- or five-star review. That's impossible right now because Yelp has activated its "Active Cleanup Alert" placeholder that prevents Yelp users from leaving reviews when an establishment is battling a controversial news story. "The most sickening part of this vicious attack has been the stealing of Instagram images, Facebook images of children, minors, aged 5, 7, and 8 years old that are then slapped across their chat boards as nothing but pawns," Alefantis says. "Yes, it’s scary to be attacked, it’s...

In an article for Sunday’s New York Times that bordered on parody, reporter Jason Horowitz touted concerns from Washington D.C. liberals that the incoming Trump administration would sap the nation’s capital of its culture: “What the effect on Washington will be when Donald J. Trump moves into the White House is hard to predict. But many Washingtonians fear the worst.” No surprise, the leading critic was former Democratic D.C. mayor Vincent Gray, who warned: “I’m worried about people not wanting to come here because of the image they have of the Trump administration.” Horowitz added: “Mr. Gray said he worried...

In more than one campaign speech, President elect Donald Trump declared that his number priority was “to dismantle the disastrous deal” with Iran, which he said was “the worst deal ever” He was referring to the 2015 accord negotiated with Iran by the 5P+1 (five Permanent Security Council members plus Germany), which the Obama administration presented as putting the lid on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Trump vowed to use force if necessary to prevent Tehran from acquiring the bomb. So does Tehran have more to fear from Donald Trump than from Barack Obama in the way of US military intervention?...

Donald Trump is planning to spend as little time in the White House as possible, according to reports. The president-elect's preference for his $100 million New York penthouse has called into question who will pay for the 90-minute commute to the capital by helicopter. During the campaign trail, the businessman would often fly back late at night to his gold-bedecked luxury home in Trump Tower so he could wake up in his own bed. The New York Times claimed that Trump is already having discussions with advisers about how many days of the week he is required to spend in...

"Drill, baby, drill!” During her bid for vice president in 2008, that was Sarah Palin's crowd-pleasing chant promoting her energy policy. Now the pithy catchphrase – and the former Alaska governor herself – could make a comeback. News reports say Palin is on President-elect Donald Trump's short list to head the Interior Department. As secretary of the interior, she'd be in charge of overseeing oil drilling, uranium mining and other energy extraction on 500 million acres of public land, including iconic national parks like the Grand Canyon. The pro-mining policies Trump and Palin could be expected to bring to Interior...

In a radio interview on Saturday, evangelist Franklin Graham said that Christians shouldn’t necessarily be concerned by Donald Trump’s history, because the GOP presidential candidate was one of “many people” who “gave their hearts to Christ” at his father Billy Graham’s 95th birthday party in 2013. Graham was the guest on Saturday’s episode of “The Christian Worldview,” a program hosted by David Wheaton. Wheaton asked Graham, “What do you say to the Christian who has hesitancy for Donald Trump?” “Well, first of all, three years ago this coming Monday my father celebrated his 95th birthday,” Graham replied. “Donald Trump was...

Earlier this year, when Steve Bannon was still running the right-wing website Breitbart and transforming it into an arm of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Glenn Beck warned that Bannon was a “horrible, despicable human being,” likening him to Adolf Hitler’s propagandist Joseph Goebbels. A few months later, when Trump tapped Bannon to serve as a key adviser to his campaign, Beck raised the alarm again, declaring that Bannon was “quite possibly the most dangerous guy in all of American politics.” Now that Trump has announced that Bannon will serve chief strategist and senior adviser in the White House, Beck issued...

Jason Horowitz writes in The New York Times that the Beltway elite fear that President-elect Donald Trump’s “drain the swamp” mentality will greatly reduce the posh culture of Washington, D.C., which expanded under Barack Obama’s presidency. From The New York Times: What the effect on Washington will be when Donald J. Trump moves into the White House is hard to predict. But many Washingtonians fear the worst. Among them is Vincent Gray, the city’s mayor during much of the Obama administration. “I’m worried about people not wanting to come here because of the image they have of the Trump administration,”...

Donald Trump’s transition team is reportedly considering Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Sheriff David Clarke and outgoing Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio as possible nominees to head up the Department of Homeland Security. Clarke has made a name for himself as a Fox News pundit and avid supporter of the gun lobby, using his platform in the media to attack Black Lives Matter, which he describes as a lawless, “subversive” and potentially ISIS-linked group composed of “black slime” that must be “eradicated,” and to champion the cause of anti-government militants, whom he praises as patriots. When white supremacists murdered six people...